Boy Scouts in Glacier Park Part 39

"After you, my dear Alphonse," Tom laughed. "Anyhow, we both hit him, and that's some shooting at a hundred feet, in the middle of the night, even if it is moonlight. We better get our snow-shoes on, and drag him home. Wonder if Mr. Mills will come, or stick it out at the other yard?"

"I bet he comes," said Joe. "He must have heard us fire."

They made an improvised sledge of a big, broken pine bough, to keep the body up on top of the snow, and were tying it on to this with their handkerchiefs knotted around the feet, when they heard a far call.

"He's coming!" said Joe, and making his hands into a trumpet, he answered the call.

They had the body out of the yard, and were crossing an open park with it, tugging hard, when the Ranger's halloo sounded much nearer, and shortly after he appeared in the moonlight, coming fast.

"You got him, eh?" he said. "That's good work. I heard your two shots, and then one more. That was to finish him at close range, I bet."

"You win," said the boys. "Gee, but he's heavy to drag."

"That's a b.u.m sled," the Ranger laughed. "Either of you got your axe on?"

"No, we haven't," the boys said.

"I'll find a fallen pole, then. Drag him along to the next stand."

The Ranger went ahead, and found a small fallen tree from which he broke the dead branches and made a pole. Slipping this between the lion's paws (which were knotted together with handkerchiefs) he picked up one end and Tom the other, the lion hanging down between them. Joe took the rifles, and they started home.

The moon was setting behind the Divide and the world growing dark under the frosty stars as they neared the cabin. Once inside, the boys got a rule, and ran back to measure their prey. He was exactly eight feet long, with three feet more of tail, and by lantern light they could see his yellowish-brown color, his gray face and dirty white belly. He looked like some gigantic, elongated house cat.

"Is that what used to be all over the country, and was called a panther?" Joe asked.

"I suppose it is," the Ranger said. "Probably this type that lives in the Rocky Mountains looks a bit different, but it's the same breed o'

cat. You don't have panthers out East any more, do you?"

"No, they say one hasn't been seen in Ma.s.sachusetts for fifty years or more," Tom answered. "Don't know that I'm sorry. I like the deer too well."

"Speaking of deer, to-morrow we'll go up and rescue the good carcases he didn't eat, and have some fresh meat," said Mills. "Now to bed. Do you know it's two o'clock?"

"'Most time to get up!" the boys laughed, as they cleaned their rifle barrels and made ready for bunk.

CHAPTER XXVI--A Hundred Miles in Four Days, Over the Snow, Which is a Long Trip To Get Your Mail

The next morning Mills was up at the usual time, but he let the boys sleep, and it was the sound of the breakfast dishes that woke Joe, who was usually first up to do the cooking and get the stove red hot. Joe himself slept in a separate little room part.i.tioned off at the back, so he could have his window wide open without freezing out the whole cabin.

He got up now and hurried out, still sleepy.

"I had a funny dream last night," he said. "I dreamed we were bringing the lion home on the sledge Peary took to the North Pole."

"Not a bad idea!" the Ranger exclaimed. "We might make a sledge to get the deer meat home on. Suppose we do that to-day, and to-night we'll take turns guarding the yard from possible wolves."

In the Ranger's cabin was a kit of tools, and outside was plenty of wood. A sled like Peary's, however, was impractical in the soft snow, and, moreover, they soon found that without small hard woods to work with it would be impossible to build any kind of an enduring sledge.

"Why don't we make a toboggan?" said Tom.

"You need hard wood for that, too, to curl the end--and it takes time to steam the wood and get it bent, anyhow," Mills replied.

"Wait--I have it!" Joe cried. "You folks be getting three or four strips of board ten feet long planed down thin, with the under side smooth.

I'll come back presently."

He put on his skis and vanished down the trail, with a shovel over his shoulder.

While he was gone Tom and the Ranger took two boards left over from the stable, each about six inches wide, and made another by hand-hewing it from a fallen log close to the cabin. Before this was done, Joe had returned, bearing triumphantly a twenty-five pound b.u.t.ter box.

"I saw it behind the hotel, on the trash pile, when I got the hens," he said. "I went down there and dug where I thought it was. Had to make three holes and a tunnel before I got it--but it's hard wood, and all curled."

When the third board was hewn out, and all three planed smooth and thin, they were laid side by side and connected with light crosspieces. Then the bottom was removed from the big b.u.t.ter box, the side drum severed, and one end securely fastened under the front end of the toboggan bottom. Thus the b.u.t.ter box curled up and around like the front of a real toboggan. The loose end was secured with thongs, and rings were put on either side of the boards, to run ropes through to hold on a load.

Finally, a rope to pull it by was made fast.

"There!" Tom said. "That's a regular toboggan, and she'll ride on top of the softest snow."

"I wonder if she'll buck when we throw a diamond hitch?" Joe laughed.

As soon as supper was over, Joe went alone, with his rifle, up to the yard, and watched over the dead deer till eleven o'clock, when Tom relieved him. Tom watched till three, and then the Ranger guarded till daylight.

But before daylight Joe was up, cooked some breakfast, roused Tom, and taking food for Mills and pulling the toboggan, they hurried over the snow, now well packed into a trail by their frequent trips to the yard.

All that morning they worked skinning the deer, to save the valuable hides for moccasins, thongs, and similar uses, and quartering the carcases which the lion had not molested after killing them. The meat, of course, was frozen now, and would keep indefinitely. It was a great load of skins and meat they finally packed upon the toboggan, piled high and fastened securely on, but a very dirty, b.l.o.o.d.y, tired lot of people to drag it home, and they were glad enough that the yard was above the cabin, not below it.

But that night, after they were washed, they sat down to a fresh venison steak, and forgot their weariness, as only men can who have lived largely on canned goods for many weeks.

"M-m, m-m!" said Tom. "This is good! Somehow I ain't so mad at that old lion as I was!"

"What did you kill him for, then?" Mills laughed. "You might have had eleven other deer to eat if you'd let him go."

"Kind o' mixed, isn't it?" Tom confessed. "I sure would kill him every time--but I'd rather eat the deer than leave 'em for the wolves, just the same."

"If you want something good to eat, get one of your lion friends to kill a sheep for you, and bring us some mutton," said the Ranger. "I haven't had a piece of mutton for ten years, I guess. Before this was a Park, and we used to hunt here, my! the feasts I've had!"

"Well, I could stand tinned beef all my life, to see the sheep alive,"

Joe declared. "I'm glad it's a Park now."

The next day the hides were spread to cure, and the meat was all cleaned and hung, and the three then overhauled their equipment and packed up to make a start the next day for Glacier Park station. No mail had come to anybody since October, they had been able to send no letters to their parents, and the Ranger had not even been able to report to the Park superintendent, or the boys to send telegrams since the storm before Thanksgiving, because the telephone wire between Many Glacier Hotel and the railroad had been broken. As a rule, Mills used this wire in winter.

One of the objects of their trip was to see about this break.

The trip out to the railroad, which was about fifty-five miles by automobile road, could now be reduced to about forty-five, because they could cut cross lots, over the deep snow, shaving the end of Flat Top Mountain (not the Flat Top of the Valley Forge camp, but another on the eastern edge of the overthrust), and by good hiking reach Glacier Park station in two days. They planned to take the toboggan, loading on it their provisions, sleeping-bags, a small tent, axes, and the scouts'

snow-shoes. The boys planned to wear skis for a good part of the trip, and to put Mills on the toboggan on the down grades, thus saving time.

He laughed at the idea, but as the shoes were light made no objection.

That night was clear and cold, and the next day promised to be fair. Joe and Tom sat up late, getting letters ready to send home, and Joe spent an hour on a letter to Lucy Elkins, telling her about his life in the Park, and promising to send snow pictures as soon as he could get them developed. But they were up long before the sun in the morning, and set off by starlight, all three on the ropes of the toboggan, down the trail.

When they came to the first long, snowy slope, Mills said, "Let me see one of you go down it on your skis."

Tom dropped the rope, and ran, gaining speed as he went, the snow flying out from under the prow of his skis, and a moment later was waving his hand from the bottom.